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A review by now_booking
A Girl's Guide to the Outback by Jessica Kate
3.0
This is a cute Christian Inspirational romantic comedy about American risk-taking business developer, Kimberly, and risk-averse, Australian youth pastor, Sam, and how these on the surface, polar in personality opposites, are actually pretty similar in their self-doubt and fear and yet have to work together to save Sam’s sister’s farm in Australia.
There’s also a secondary second chance romance plot in this featuring Sam’s sister, Jules, and his best friend, Mick, so you kind of get a two-for-one with this. I think that was both bad and good- good because I don’t think I would have wanted to read a completely separate book for Jules, but bad because it took away a bit from the focus on Sam and Kimberly. There are also multiple perspectives in this book- we get the story from Kimberly’s, Sam’s, Jules’, and Mick’s perspective and for this reason, urgency in one conflict is sometimes lost when the story is taken on by a different character with a different conflict. This relay style of story telling and flashing to other storylines in the middle of someone’s plot and conflict, read more like a tv miniseries, than it did a novel and I could definitely picture this as a film or miniseries. I also think that the relationships as they are written would have transferred better on film than they did reading them- I didn’t feel like there was enough of a “why” for the romantic relationships.
Overall, I did enjoy this. It’s a little slow-going in parts because it was a little hard to stay in the story sometimes with all the voice-switching. What I did love were the themes of letting things go and trusting God, and the difference between the identity we give ourselves and who we think we are, versus the identify God gives us and who he says we are. I think the author did an amazing job blending the Christian part of the messages in with the plot really seamlessly so it never came across as separate or forced. For a Christian reader who prefers a completely chaste romance or wants to buy this for someone who does, there is quite a bit of kissing/making out in this. It’s never anything beyond PG or PG-13 but just to keep in mind if this is not something you want to read. This was my first book by this author and I would read her again.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
There’s also a secondary second chance romance plot in this featuring Sam’s sister, Jules, and his best friend, Mick, so you kind of get a two-for-one with this. I think that was both bad and good- good because I don’t think I would have wanted to read a completely separate book for Jules, but bad because it took away a bit from the focus on Sam and Kimberly. There are also multiple perspectives in this book- we get the story from Kimberly’s, Sam’s, Jules’, and Mick’s perspective and for this reason, urgency in one conflict is sometimes lost when the story is taken on by a different character with a different conflict. This relay style of story telling and flashing to other storylines in the middle of someone’s plot and conflict, read more like a tv miniseries, than it did a novel and I could definitely picture this as a film or miniseries. I also think that the relationships as they are written would have transferred better on film than they did reading them- I didn’t feel like there was enough of a “why” for the romantic relationships.
Overall, I did enjoy this. It’s a little slow-going in parts because it was a little hard to stay in the story sometimes with all the voice-switching. What I did love were the themes of letting things go and trusting God, and the difference between the identity we give ourselves and who we think we are, versus the identify God gives us and who he says we are. I think the author did an amazing job blending the Christian part of the messages in with the plot really seamlessly so it never came across as separate or forced. For a Christian reader who prefers a completely chaste romance or wants to buy this for someone who does, there is quite a bit of kissing/making out in this. It’s never anything beyond PG or PG-13 but just to keep in mind if this is not something you want to read. This was my first book by this author and I would read her again.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.